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On Rowing Writing And The ‘Old Guard’

In the latest issue of Rowing News for November, I read that rowing historian and writer Chris Dodd is coming out with a new book, Pieces of Eight. It is about coach Bob Janousek and the British eight that put British rowing back on the Olympic medal stand, according to the short ‘contributor’ introduction piece in the magazine, where Chris has a well-written article about the World Championships in Bled earlier this year. I don’t know if it has to do with Chris being a Brit and/or belonging to the Old Guard of rowing correspondents, like his fellow countrymen Dickie Burnell and Geoffrey Page, but his writing always carries a substance while still having an easy-going way about it.

I guess those of you who are going to the Rowing History Forum in Henley later this month, on the 29th, will hear more about Chris’s new book. Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it, but for sure Chris will share some information at next year’s Rowing History Forum, which will be on Sunday, 11th March, 2012 at Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, USA. The previous day, Saturday, 10th March, there will be rowers inducted in the NRF’s National Rowing Hall of Fame, also in Mystic.

Going back to the Rowing News: I am not saying that young American rowing writers can not write. I good example, whom I already brought up in an earlier entry in September, is Bryan Kitch, who also in this issue of Rowing News has some very good pieces published. Of course, of the American ‘Old Guard’ we have ‘Doctor Rowing’, Andy Anderson. In this issue of the magazine, he is writing about the rowing cartoonist John Hooten, who had cartoons published in the old rowing magazine The Oarsman in the 1970s and 1980s, but then suddenly stopped publishing his cartoons. Well, ‘Doctor Rowing’ managed to track him down.

So, two thumbs up for this issue of Rowing News, too!

Photograph on top shows Chris Dodd (on the right) together with HTBS’s Tim Koch at Henley this summer. Photograph: Hélène Rémond.